


After the Devil gets his Due

by Chibifukurou



Category: Ready or Not (2019)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Post-Canon, Pre-Relationship, gratuitous use of the word fuck
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-25
Updated: 2020-12-25
Packaged: 2021-03-11 01:21:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,260
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28306710
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chibifukurou/pseuds/Chibifukurou
Summary: Daniel wakes up. He didn't expect to. There is an annoying beeping, and the place smells of antiseptic. And when he finally pries his eyes open, he finds himself in a hospital room, chest covered in bandages. Grace asleep in the next bed over. She’s pale, and the IV bag over her bed is the dark red of new blood. Her feet stick out the end of the blankets, wrapped in bandages. But she’s alive. And sunlight is streaming in through the window.The Deal is over. They are finally fucking free.
Relationships: Daniel Le Domas & Grace Le Domas
Comments: 1
Kudos: 51
Collections: Yuletide 2020





	After the Devil gets his Due

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Alderes](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Alderes/gifts).



> So this is tagged Major Character Death for the events of the Movie. Not because either of the characters in the fic die. I wasn't really sure whether to tag or not that being the case. But better safe than sorry.

Daniel has never gotten away from his family. He’d known what he was giving up earlier than his younger siblings. Known the price of his family and paid it gladly to keep them both out of it. Emilie ends up her own kind of fucked up. But it is the kind of fucked up that seemed to come with money, rather than ritual sacrifices. 

At least most of the other rich fucks Daniel met in school seemed to share her conviction that the world revolved around them and they were untouchable. Daniel killed a man when he was a little kid, to spare his brother having to do it. And he’s killed a goat every month since. He’s a whole different kind of fucked up. 

When Alex gets out, it’s like a fucking miracle. Daniel made a pact with the Devil, paid the price, and now finally the reward. Only like all the devil’s deals, it goes to shit. Alex doesn’t stay gone, doesn’t even seem to fucking get why he should. Oh, he dresses it up nice. The rituals aren’t real, nothing is going to happen. There hasn’t been a mysterious death in the main family for thirty years. But he’s got the wrong end of the stick. It doesn’t matter if the Devil’s bargain is real or not. The family will make it real. 

Daniel drinks himself stupid at the wedding so he doesn’t laugh in Alex’s face or drag Grace off the property and pay her every cent he has not to come back. There hasn’t been a death in the family in thirty years because there hasn’t been an innocent person in the family for thirty years. 

And from what he can tell, that’s what Grace is. A decent girl who’s been swept off her feet by a handsome, kind man, who’s offering her a family. She’s even too polite to call him out on his drunken warnings. Maybe he should have stayed sober, so she believed him. But she’s in love and he’s a waste of space. She’s got no reason to listen to him.

Not when Alex has promised a future, they are never going to have. Grace is like a kinder, better version of Charity. Just like Alex was the better version of Daniel. They deserved each other, and neither of them deserved what was coming next. 

And then it’s midnight and the games begin. Nobody seems to realize what is coming but him. Do Devil deals make you stupid? He drinks more. Prays Alex will see sense. The card comes up. And then it’s a bloodbath. 

The fact that most of it isn’t Grace’s blood doesn’t matter. They’re still hunting humans for sport. He needs more to drink. Maybe he can die of it. If he tries hard enough. Alex finally seems to have seen sense. Too late to matter. He’ll have to watch Grace die or kill her himself. Either way, it will break him. Thirty years later and all Daniel’s sacrifices are being washed down the drain. 

It almost seems like Karma when Grace pops out of the servant’s passages and straight into his lap. And he has a chance to make up for thirty years ago when he lets her go. 

It seems inevitable when he’s the one who catches her in the end. Because it’s that or watch his dad do it. If the Devil isn’t real and setting Daniel’s life up for his amusement as the next heir to the family Deal. This sure is a fucked up string of coincidences. 

He’s not sure if it’s the Devil or his family who he’s telling to fuck off when he poisons the ceremonial drink. Either way, there is Charity and a gun to make him pay. And he finally, finally he gets way out. 

*

There is blood all over Grace. And she just saw the Devil. The laughter just comes bubbling up like the blood from her various wounds after that. She’s the main character in a country western song now. Full of Devil deals and jilted lovers. And she didn’t even make it twenty-four hours before she was alone again. Even her worst nightmares about bad marriages didn’t live up to this. So much for fucking Alex and his fucking promises of a family.

She shudders, still feeling his hands on her face, holding her down. If she had let him live, would they have been the new holders of that Fucking Deal? Mr. Le Bail hadn’t shown up to acknowledge her victory until Alex was dead too. She remembers Becky’s talk of Grace becoming the new family Matriarch. And then she remembers the feel of Becky’s face caving in. 

And everything stopped being funny and started being too much. The house is burning and she is filthy and all she fucking wants is a smoke. She stumbles down the hall for the back porch. That still looks out on the lawn decorated for her wedding. So fucking stupid the whole thing. 

She almost misses him, she’s so tired and the smoke is getting thick now. Which saves his life. A series of choked off coughs starts in the hall as she’s passing by. She’s not sure who she’s expecting. One of the maids maybe? But it’s Daniel. Shot in the chest and bleeding and somehow still alive and not exploded. 

He’s too big to carry, So she’s stuck dragging him, using his suspenders for leverage. It’s probably not doing his gun shot wound any good. Every step leaves her the souls of her shoes cut open on more rubble as the house caves in around them. She should probably worry that she’s not feeling the pain as clearly anymore. Heat licks at her skin as the smoke makes her cough too. He’s probably going to die either way, and he wouldn’t be upset if she left him. 

But she’s not going to become like the Le Domas. She’s not going to play fucking games with other people’s lives. She owes him for being man enough to warn her, and trying to save her when she wouldn’t listen, and then getting fucking shot for her. Whatever debt she owes Daniel is getting repaid right here, right now. Or they will both fucking die trying.

They make it out just before the stairway collapses and brings the second floor down with it. Burning wood and embers flying out like an explosion, Catching on the already ruined skirt of her dress and leaving her desperately patting herself out and coughing up a lung. Maybe she’ll wait on that cigarette. 

Once she’s no longer burning, she goes back to dragging Daniel further from the fire. Until finally, on the far end of the porch, she lets herself collapse. Everything hurts, she needs so many tetanus shots, but she’s alive and the people who were hunting her aren’t and in the distance sirens are coming this way, too late to help God damn anyone. 

The laughter starts up again.

*

Daniel wakes up. He didn't expect to. There is an annoying beeping, and the place smells of antiseptic. And when he finally pries his eyes open, he finds himself in a hospital room, chest covered in bandages. Grace asleep in the next bed over. She’s pale, and the IV bag over her bed is the dark red of new blood. Her feet stick out the end of the blankets, wrapped in bandages. But she’s alive. And sunlight is streaming in through the window. 

The Deal is over. They are finally fucking free.


End file.
